‘Return on Emotion’ Brings Fans to the Stadium

"Addiction can be very negative, but also positive,” theorized Xavier De Vynck, VP of Business Development at EVS in his session “Generating the Return on Emotion - Serving The Sports Fans Better” at the ISE Commercial Solutions Theatre (8M370) yesterday. “If people are addicted to sports, they’ll come back to the stadium.”

For 20 years, EVS has been producing and delivering live video content, mainly for the sports world, and De Vynck emphasized the core draw to any stadium, regardless of technology: “If fans go to a game, they want to have a unique experience.”

Indicating the rapidly changing media landscape, with mobility ruling the day, De Vynck described how live content delivered online can actually help attract people back to the stadium. Rather than staying at home to watch the game, or feeling like they missed a play from the stands, fans gain more satisfaction by watching replays from multiple angles on their own portable devices.

In addition to mobile video, he also noted the importance of producing engaging content for digital signage and displays in luxury suites. A new trend is to direct content directly at women in the stadiums to boost the numbers of female fans who come to games, and in-stadium apps can help sell empty seats at a reduced price to fans who want to upgrade.

“The next step when you connect people in the stadium is you identify them with fan relationship applications,” said De Vynck. The demographics of fans can be gathered via the apps and video clips they watch. “We see that video is very important, once people are into the app it connects them to all sorts of things. It’s all about getting them into the app and into the game.”